About me

Fairies in My Fireplace by R.L. Naqui‏

Rachel’s head is packed with an outrageous amount of useless Disney trivia. She is terrified of thunder, but not of lightning, and tends to recite the Disneyland dedication speech during storms to keep herself calm. She finds it appalling that nobody from Disney has called yet with her castle move-in date.

Originally from Northern California, she has a tendency to move every few years, resulting in a total of seven different states and a six-year stint in England. Currently, she’s planning her next grand adventure. Rachel has one heroic husband, two genius kids, a crazy-cat-lady starter kit, and an imaginary dog named Waffles.

A migration of mythical creatures has begun, and more and more of them are landing on Zoey Donovan's doorstep. As the only Aegis left in the country, it falls to her to protect the Hidden and keep them safe—and her house has become a sanctuary for water sprites, goblins, harpies, djinn and more.

Keeping track of her boarders is a full-time job, and Zoey's already got her hands full trying to run her wedding planning business. Good thing she has a resident closet monster to keep her organized, and a hot Reaper boyfriend to help her relax every once in a while.

But she can't keep up monster-triage indefinitely, and as more Hidden arrive, it becomes clear that someone—or something—is hunting them. In the midst of planning an event for a notoriously difficult client, Zoey's got to figure out who's behind the hunt…and she's got to stop them before there are no Hidden left.

Q) What inspired you to write this story? I woke up one morning with a picture in my head of a closet monster sitting at the kitchen table reading the newspaper, and my main character walking in on him. From there, the entire Monster Haven series was born based on the question “What if the monsters were the ones who needed help?”

Q) How long did it take you to write? The short answer is two months, but it’s more complicated than that. I usually spend a month or two outlining a book and playing with the structure of it. Then it takes me about two months to write, and another two months for the editing. Mind you, each of these stages shares time with other books in different stages, so, for example, I’m editing one while I’m writing another, or outlining while I’m editing, or even promoting a release while writing one and editing another. I might have three different books in different stages at any given time.

Q) What is your favorite thing about writing? Making stuff up, then actually typing words to bring that stuff to life.

Q) What is your least favorite thing about writing?My least favorite part is when I hit the middle of a book and start thinking the whole thing is terrible, I’m terrible, the series is terrible, and I should become an accountant, even though I’m terrible at math.

Q) If you could be any famous person for one day, who would you be and why?Walt Disney. I would love to walk around the parks and freak everybody out. Is that Walt Disney? Oh, my God! He’s alive! I bet I wouldn’t have to stand in line for any of the rides. People would just stand back with their jaws hanging open. Good times.

Q) What is the oldest thing in your fridge and how old is it?Probably something in the door. I’ve been in this house for four years? Five? I bet there’s a jar of olives that came with us from the last place. Ew.

Q) What can readers expect from you in the future?Book four of the Monster Haven series, Golem in My Glovebox is already written and will be out in the spring. Books five and six will follow at six-month intervals. Currently, I’m working on a new series I’m still keeping relatively sekrit, but I hope to have it out in November of next year.